"We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s."

Last night Facebook launched 'Places' their new location-based feature.

Similar to Foursquare and Gowalla, it allows you to check in at places you visit - for example bars, cinemas, airports, stations...

You can see it on the mobile app above. It won't let me check in at the moment, but I'm sure I will in the next few days.

Clearly this will increase the number of people checking in. Foursquare and Gowalla have tiny (although influential) levels of reach compared to Facebook. According to their most recent figures they have more than 150 million people using Facebook on a mobile device.

Foursquare and Gowalla will survive, as they have a less mainstream audience, and their own features and promotions.

There will also be lots of embarassing situations (& worse) caused by people sharing their location. Oh - and I think we urgently need a new etiquette of cheching in! (e.g. not if you're going for a job interview, not if you're meant to be ill, arguably not in churches, and so on).

It will also underline how you need to know WHY you usespecific services. I use Foursquare to keep a track of places I go to, and for a bit of fun. It's useful to know that I've been to my local bakery 14 times in the last 3 months (kind of...), but not so useful (as I see it) to know that I've been to work every day this week, which is why I don't check in at my office. The increased use of location services like Places mean that people need to know why they use it, before they do.

You can see the page here, with the differently priced packages, ranging from $25 to $10,000. (No one's gone for the $10,000 option - DJing at your house - but he's sold two of the $1,000 option - hanging out back-stage).

Monday, August 16, 2010

I saw a great chart last year, showing how the very good box office performance for Twilight could have been predicted by the level of buzz generated, and the number of people saying that they were going to see it.

But... Not always.

Click to enlarge

A case in point is the first weekend performance for the new film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. From this chart (using Radian6) you'd expect it to have beaten both The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love in revenues.

So why didn't the buzz reflect the reality? I think it's mainly because Scott Pilgrim fans are very active social media users; fans of The Expendables, and particularly Eat, Pray, Love, less so. It may also be the case, as I mentioned last week, that the marketing was fantastic from the point of view of the hard-core comic book fan audience, less so for a more general audience. In which case we've been here before: In 2007 Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse, a film very much targeted at film geeks, only made $11.5m in the first weekend.

Use buzz tracking data with caution! As with all research bear in mind the audience being surveyed.

"Hello, I'm the musician Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly and I will come and play an acoustic gig wherever in the UK, for the highest bidder. With the exception of transport costs, all money raised will go to Oxfam's Pakistan Floods Appeal."

A new Foursquare promotion happened at the weekend in the US. People checking in at Gap got 25% off their bill.

I'd love to see the stats, and I'd love to know what Gap are doing with the data they're getting from it (level of spend, discounts per store, most popular stores, most popular things bought etc). In fact it was so successful (apparently) that they've now extended it until 22nd August.

This is an interesting example of Foursquare being used like an emailed voucher, and it shows one example of the potential of the service (and of location-based apps for retailers).

Friday, August 13, 2010

YouTube Annotations is about 2 years old. It's a system that video uploaders can use to direct traffic to other videos, and has been used in lots of fun ways, including 'choose your own adventure' games like this one by Samsung.

Now YouTube are letting a few partners send traffic through to other sites. This is potentially huge - for example click on a film trailer to buy tickets, or a DVD, or even click on an item of clothing to buy it.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is Edgar Wright's first American film (after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and after the TV series Spaced).

Edgar has huge geek credibility, Scott Pilgrim is an established cult comic book series, and this film must be a joy to promote. The target audience essentially live on the internet, and there are lots of ways to get them interested in the film.

Heck, one fan has even made this trailer himself, matching shots from the original trailer with frames from the comic:

Competition on IndabaMusic. IndabaMusic is an online music community. Musicians post demos and complete songs and ask others to submit other parts (e.g. drums) or do remixes. The Scott Pilgrim competition (in the film Scott is in a band) asks people to remix a theme for a fight scene. Prizes come via Fender guitars, and also include the chance to work with Dan the Automator.

Just two examples of reaching out to niches. My question would be though, is this going to focus it too much on the sort of people who would have gone to see the film anyway?

The classic case of this was Grindhouse, who managed to engage hard core fans, but seemingly left the mainstream behind. (The film didn't perform very well at the box office). Similarly Kick Ass made a big noise online but generated less than $50m at the US box office (source).

My hope is that Scott Pilgrim is using lots of mainstream, high reach channels as well!

Yes, people can be too obsessed with the new, new thing, but that Forrester are wrong on this, both specifically and in principle.

1 - Yes, Foursquare may only have a very low level of reach, but with 100,000 iPhones, 200,000 Android phones, and 300,000 Symbian phones being sold each day, the number of people capable of using services like this is growing very quickly.

2 - No one is proposing that you put large amounts or a large percent of your budget into it. Advertisers that currently use it, for example Huffington Post, generally media companies, and they are doing it to boost their prestige by tying real world things to their programmes. Others like Domino Pizza are using it for loyalty. I doubt that any of the deals involve that much money.

3 - Some audiences are hard to reach. Some audiences don't watch much TV, because they go out a lot. Foursquare is specifically appealing to people who go out a lot, so it can be a good way of reaching these people. (to put it very simplistically). In fact your audience is using it already, so you should be aware of it, and control how their experience of you within Foursquare. This applies for lots of other services.

4 - It's good to test new ideas and new media channels, with small budgets. Set up targets and work out how you're going to measure it, but please use some of your budget to test new things.

5 - It's good to deal with young companies. Imagine it you'd been dealing with Facebook back in 2005. You'd be in a very advantageous position with them now. The person you initially dealt with would be very senior within the company. In this way marketers should keep a track of companies & people with good ideas, and do business with them.

6 - Dealing with companies like Foursquare can generate lots of PR. Yes, everyone is obsessed with the shiny and new, so why not be part of it? With the caveats expressed earlier on targets and measurement.

Friday, August 06, 2010

In the area of checkins and badges everyone raves about Foursquare, and it certainly has the most users, but increasingly Gowalla is doing the more interesting things.

The best way to stay up with these are through the Gowalla blog. For example a couple of weeks ago it announced a promotion with Elements Skateboards where, if you managed to find a Water Bottle badge, you could exchange it for a real one in the Elements store. Gowalla is also getting involved with politics, enabling people to follow politicians on the campaign trail (presumably some of the only celebs who don't mind being followed). Lots of really interesting initiatives.

Monday, August 02, 2010

As part of Cadbury's sponsorship of the the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games they've been holding a competition to create a new pocket game to be played by 2 or more people.

Games have been submitted and the final 10, as picked by the judges are on show here. The top 2 games will be sent outro 25,000 people to play.

To add extra depth to the campaign there's a Spots Vs Stripes site, and you sign up to play for Spots or Stripes on Facebook. There is also a series of Spots Vs. Stripes events planned, like this one in London.